Academy of the Sword: The Mystery of the Spanish Circle in Swordsmanship and Esoteric Arts

Secret Geometries of the SwordIn the early years of the 17th century, Girard Thibault - poet, physician, architect, painter, occultist, and master swordsman, a true Renaissance man - astonished the courts of Europe with a new system of swordsmanship based on the principles of sacred geometry and Renaissance occult philosophy. In his youth, Thibault studied the art of the sword with the great Dutch fencing master Lambert van Someren, then traveled to southern Spain to learn destreza, the revolutionary Spanish system of rapier fencing, from Luis Pacheco de Narvaez and other masters of the art. After his return to the Netherlands around 1610, he won fame as one of the best swordsmen of the age, and set out to put everything he knew about the way of the sword into a single comprehensive textbook of rapier fencing that could be used by students who had no access to a teacher of his system.Originally published in 1630, Academy of the Sword is that textbook - the most elaborate manual of swordsmanship ever published.